Ghost of Future's Past
by JustVictor
Summary: Written for the Secret Santa 2014 - Janeway visits a timeline she thought was destroyed. Post-endgame.
1. Chapter 1

**Ghost of Future's Past**

* * *

"...we both saw something we liked, a willingness to have no walls, or maybe just an unwillingness to keep them standing." – Ian Caldwell, "The Rule of Four"

* * *

**Venice – 2378**

The city streets are nearly silent. Somewhere, not far, a violin plays through a Brahms waltz at alternating tempos, suggesting it's more practice than performance. It echoes through the narrow gaps between buildings, seeking an audience in the maze of century old buildings. Photon lanterns throw light down the channel and pull shadows out at odd angles. They're easy to get lost in, my body pleasantly warm and sated, though skipping dinner may have been an error.

We abandoned our café reservation in favor of more intimate pursuits. Preplanned speeches and long-awaited expressions of love forgone at the transport pad when he slipped his and in mine and began to walk at a dreamlike pace beneath the dapple of familiar stars.

We made it. Through debriefs and disciplinary boards, past the pomp and ceremony. Events of the Admiral's history now niggling possibilities on a vastly irrelevant timeline. Tuvok's descent into madness, Seven's death... Wiped out.

There are worse things to lose to time.

A hand skims freely around my waist. My surprised gasp shifts to a sigh when Chakotay pulls me against his chest and places his mouth against my ear.

"Come back to bed."

"In a while."

Acknowledging murmurs become soft nuzzling moans as his hands make their own assessment on how interested I am in resuming our evening's previous activities. Deft fingers track the length of my arms before slipping beneath the edges of a loose sheet in search of softer skin. He's learned quickly, or he already knew. Hard to say. Alternate universes, fractures in space-time, temporal variations on a theme. We could have been lovers long before this on any timeline, and I have no idea which he has experienced.

His lips go to work on my neck, coaxing me back from the window with the promise of deeper, longer kisses, but when I don't respond, he pulls back. His profile is carved in shadow and light, and for a split second he looks like someone else.

"Regrets?"

Sex changes many things, but nothing quite as irrevocably as friendship. Until tonight we had safe places to retreat should disagreement require distance to mend. Even on a ship as small as _Voyager_, we could avoid each other if need be, but no longer.

"About this?" I settle a firm hand atop his. "_Never_."

A reassuring tone goes a long way with this man, but I'd be a fool to think that is the only way he reads me. His lips test the tension in my shoulders, the place a lie would settle, then smile against my throat.

It's startling how well he knows me; how after years in one role he so effortlessly slips into another. No thought given to the precursor hours of tonight where the words "captain" and "admiral" came with a chasm of distance and decorum. If I'm being honest, it has taken me hours to break down those rigid habits, to bend my body toward and not away from his unrestricted touch. He doesn't mind. He understands without saying so. He's adoring and careful, but ultimately deferential to his own desire, which vanishes any lingering conversation we might need to have about preference or technique. He is already my perfect lover.

So then why am I standing at this window instead returning to our bed?

I'm sure he's wondering the same thing, but just when I think to answer his unspoken question with an anxious, "I don't know," he kisses my temple and withdraws, because this, too, he understands.

"Wake me when you come in," he says, and retreats to our bed.

The door closes with a soft click, but he's gone for less than a minute when a familiar face appears at the furthest end of the balcony. I notice she's enhanced her rank to match my own. She's not smiling so much as she is politely sneering with that bemused, omnipotent humor I couldn't _possibly_ comprehend.

"Well, you've got _that_ right," Q says.

I've never been certain as too how much thought her kind can read, or if the tell is simply unbound in my expression.

"He's a virile thing, I'll give you that." Her eyes shift toward the darkened rooms of our suite, presumably in the direction Chakotay has gone. I don't bother to follow them. I've learned looking away from Q – _any Q_ – can be an invitation to disaster.

"I've got to admit," she continues, "I didn't think even _you_ were selfish enough to wipe out twenty-six years of history just to get into bed with your first officer."

"You and I both know I did nothing of the sort."

Though we've been the topic of speculation over the years, and more since we've been home. In the eyes of outside observers, Chakotay and I have always had a more interesting relationship. None of which I bother to explain.

"What can I do for you, Miss Q?"

The Q may be many things, but I suspect what they are not is beyond gender. At least, gender _preference_. Why else would this being continue to return as female, or her predecessor male? So, the nickname I coined so many years ago goes unmentioned beyond an eyebrow crept up to her hairline.

"You're a Dickens' fan, correct?"

At that I have to, _have to_, laugh. "And you're _what_? My ghost of Christmas present?"

What else could she be here for? I've had plenty of time to review the _Enterprise_'s logs. It would not be the first time a Q has shown up with this particular game in mind.

"More like, future-past. Come on. We don't have much time."

"Much time for what?"

She lets out an exasperated sigh. "Not that you've paid much attention over the years, but when the universal constant is altered, the quantum interval of the previous timeline is less than one femtosecond from your normal space time. Now, for every second to stand here arguing with me, the timeline degrades further, making it impossible to reconstruct it in terms your rudimentary mind can comprehend."

Assaults on my intelligence notwithstanding, my curiosity engages at maximum warp. Still, I look back for Chakotay. As much as it hurts to admit, it's the only thing that could pull me away from him now. Science. Discovery. The things hardwired into my psyche as motivating as any trauma.

"You mean, Admiral Janeway's future still exists in some sort of… temporal half-life?"

She nods once, starts forward as if she means for me to follow her over the rail. When I don't, she stops.

"_What?_" she hisses.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because you, Admiral, cannot leave well enough alone in any timeline, and while you might not be ready to admit it, what you did _bothers_ you. You're asking yourself –" Her tone drops an octave, closer to, if not _exactly_ my own "—did I rob them of a future just to satisfy my own desire to get some of them home safely?"

She not wrong. Although I'm asking a lot more than that. If time and destiny can be altered so easily, who is to say I won't find another reason to repeat the process? How many times have I, already? And for what? For whom? I loved them all, but were the lives of others somehow less than the lives of those I called my friends? Was that version of myself a version, or just a darker constant I've not yet seen? Will I see it, here and now?

"Which is exactly why humans are not meant to meddle in something as fragile as time. It will break your tiny mind." She saddles up a step, darkening her voice to match her expression. "One thing is true though, doubt will drive you mad. Now, far be it from me to take exception and toss pebbles into the galactic pool, but, for some reason I have yet to understand, my husband… cares for you."

"So," I let the word drawl out, giving myself time to reason, "you're here at his request?"

"Well…" She cocks an arm against her waists, finger poised to snap me into oblivion. "I'm not really here at all."


	2. Chapter 2

**Voyager – 2377**

I always expect to stagger, or feel the need to adjust in some way. Physiology suggests that being moved, without my consent, should require it. As Q shuttles us from one place to another, the only thing I conceptually know is that I'm not longer anywhere near Venice, or Earth.

It's only been six months since I stopped sleeping in my quarters aboard _Voyager_, so the room is not unfamiliar, only its placement in time. Then again, maybe not. My eyes fall first to the food laid out across the table. Smoked salmon and Uphadian tomatoes. They were sweeter than I'd expected, less acidic than the ones my palate recalled, and they paired nicely with the wine, which, if I remember correctly, was Chateaux Martine. I ate this meal.

"Like I said, future-past," Q reminds coolly from her place on the couch. She's left me standing centerfold to the room, dressed in my uniform, and just beyond Chakotay's reach.

"And what about you?" He settles a glass on the table ahead of him and smoothes the napkin over his knee. "How do you feel about all of this?"

My answer drops out of my mouth like scripting on a holonovel, very much without my say so. Even if I thought to say something different than I had, I doubt it would do much good. This conversation already happened.

"You and Seven?" I had asked, and do ask now.

In the moment, it's not so much a question of clarity as a beat for me to sit again and adjust my tone so my feelings on the matter are abundantly clear.

Chakotay nods once and waits for me to continue.

"Well, I'm certainly happy for the two of you." And I was, though it wasn't a pairing I had predicted. "But something tells me that's not exactly what you're asking."

It wasn't. I knew before dinner he'd come here to ask this question, but only because he had hinted at the topic over breakfast, calling it a 'sensitive personnel issue.' I could have answered him then, knowing some weeks prior that the nature of their relationship had changed.

There was little doubt left in me that he had committed himself to having a life beyond duty for our duration in the Delta Quadrant, but Chakotay wasn't the wanton, one-night-stand type. If he'd entered into a relationship with Seven, it was with the intention of longevity. Since I was the only officiant aboard, it was likely, given enough time, I would be asked to marry them.

"Chakotay, I don't presume to have any right to tell you what you may or may not do with your personal life, no matter what has happened between us." There. It sounds exactly as it did then, a brief acknowledgment of our past, laid over a more certain future. "You are my friend and Seven is my, _was_ my, protégé. I want happiness for both of you."

He touches my hand and smiles, but it never reaches his eyes. "This is never the conversation I imagined having with _you_."

"But I'm glad we are," I tell him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Voyager – 2378**

The scene spins away amid a whirling arc of light. The last thing to fade is the feel of Chakotay's hand around mine. When the world rights itself again I'm still sitting, however awkwardly, beside him, but this time we are facing the expanse of dashing stars. A quick check of the center console tells me Q's moved us forward a full year but kept us in the Delta Quadrant.

B'Elanna is not far from me, posted at the bridge engineering station with a significant lack of swelling around her midsection and the distinct exhaustion of a new parent written on her face. So, Miral had been born here, in Admiral Janeway's time line.

I reach for the command console again to extrapolate our position, but my hand won't quite make the reach. I've had dreams like this before, where movement is restricted by some unknown predefined entity. In this case, my ghost of future-present. She's lingering near Ops, dressed down to science-officer blues.

"Ship-shape and Bristol fashion," Chakotay says of our ship, and then _sotto voce_, "why don't you take the rest of the day off?"

He'd made the same offer a few times over the years, when the ship was functioning at peak efficiency and my idle hands were picking more at my nails than system reports.

"Trying to get rid of me?"

"Hardly. But, we have a few days until we hit the next system. I'm trying to make sure all shifts get a little leave," he wags the duty roster between us, "captain included."

"What about the first officer?"

"Seven and I are going to spend the evening in the south of France. _Provence_. Have you ever been?"

I nod, offer him a knowing smile. "I have. Very romantic."

"I'm hoping so," he says and then smoothes us back to task. "What are _you_ going to do?"

I sigh, stretch as far as the command chair will allow. "Take a bath. Catch up on some reading."

"See you in the morning?"

I snap the duty roster out of his grip and stand. "Call it afternoon."

The bridge unwinds around me and my quarters take shape again. The room is dark but familiar enough to maneuver without calling for the lights. I'm not sure why, but I _know_ the conversation I just had with Chakotay was only moments ago. There's lightness in my head, the same warmth that comes with our regular banter, but also a serenity that our relationship is stronger than ever.

The air shifts over my left shoulder, forcing me around in search of the person I know isn't there. Next to the bridge and engineering, the captain's quarters are the most secure section of any starship. Still, it happens and I whirl around just in time for an incoming swing to take me to the floor. When it does, my training kicks in, rolling me in the opposite direction of the intruder. Half-way to my feet, another strike drives me face first into the table and the world winks out to darkness.

When my eyes open again, I know my leg is broken. The sensation is memorable enough that I don't have to question how badly. In my periphery an alien chirps out sounds that bear a malevolent tone, but nothing else. His boot goes into my shoulder, then my side. The pain rumbles around, trying to decide where it wants to hurt more and then settles on everywhere.

Q is absent, seeming to have left me here to endure a future that no longer exists. The pain is real enough, wild enough. I've been tortured before, and it comes with a full helping of adrenaline-driven terror while my mind works into overdrive. There are bits I cannot do without, parts even the advanced medical capabilities won't be able to restore. My hands, my eyes. Portions of my brain. Everything else I can offer up as real estate to sate the sadistic needs of my captors.

I don't know how long I am there and lose count of the injuries they inflict. The transparency of _what_ they want never happens either. They're just cruel. Relentless. Animals.

My eyes open and close on the same rock-walled cell until they are too swollen to open at all. At some point, I'm vaguely aware of the hands on my skin, but these are softer, more cautious touches. Someone tells me I'm safe, but the sound is muddled by the blood rushing to my ears and the voice's owner remains a mystery.

Then suddenly, I'm standing, flat-footed, staring at the inside machinations of a staff meeting on full-tilt. Chakotay takes up the head of the table, Harry, Tom, and the Doctor to his left; B'Elanna, Tuvok, and Seven to his right. The ship itself is still at red alert, darkened down to power conservation levels and lit by the oscillating flare of silent, red alarms.

"No sign of alien vessels on an intercept course," Tuvok reports.

"There's an uninhabited binary system not far from here," Paris says. "It might give us a chance to resupply and lay low until…"

Chakotay's heated glance kills the rest of whatever Tom wanted to say, which means it's been a point of contention before now.

"Start repairs. I want this ship back up to full systems in three hours," he orders.

"Not possible," B'Elanna says. "Our engines I can do, but the lateral sensor array took heavy damage. We'll be flying blind."

"Seven, you're reassigned to engineering. Do whatever it takes to fix it."

B'Elanna doesn't mince words or estimations where repairs are concerned, so reassigning Seven is just a slap in the face. It's so unlike Chakotay, it moves me a full step forward, but he's already dismissing them back to their posts. The Doctor stays behind.

Chakotay's voice is breathless, strained. "Can you repair her injuries?"

"For the most part," the Doctor says, "but some of her more vital organs have been compromised, including her kidneys, which given her affinity for coffee is going to be difficult news to break."

"Is she in any pain?"

"No," the Doctor assures him. A full minute passes in silence. Either Chakotay has forgotten the need to dismiss him, or there is something else on his mind.

"You're welcome to sit with her, Commander."

"No," he says quickly. "Keep me informed of your progress, Doctor."

The weight of dispiriting stain holds Chakotay in his seat for several minutes after the room is cleared. Eventually he stands, palms the tears from his eyes, and moves towards the door.

Finally, I turn to Q. "Who did abduct me?"

She side-steps the distance to the wall display and taps a command into the screen. Readings stack out beside the image of an unfamiliar alien; biped with mottled skin, similar to a Talaxian but in hues of green and yellow. They're not the Hirogen but they're nothing to shake a stick at either. Average height and weight puts them nine centimeters and forty kilos larger than the standard human.

"They're called The Conscription. Violent, cruel species. After the Borg got done with them there was only about six-hundred thousand left in the known galaxy. Before that, they were a subjugated race to the Fen Domar."

"The Fen Domar," I repeat. "Admiral Janeway mentioned them."

Q nods. "The Conscription exists on their outermost border." Another series of commands pulls up a navigational display spanning several parsecs, but the area she indicates rings out the farthest reaches of the screen. _Voyager_ is already smack in the middle of it. She faces me again. "If it makes you feel any better, had Chakotay not suggested you return to your quarters they would have taken Harry Kim."

No, it doesn't.

"The Conscription was holding you in a prison that made the Cardassian death camps look sedate. Against Tuvok's advice, Chakotay accompanied the tactical team that retrieved you. What's bothering him now is that they took you and left."

I stare at her, startled. "Chakotay wouldn't do that."

"But he did."

* * *

Shadows and figures take shape at the table again, later in the same week I imagine. Binary stars toss blistering white light through the glass behind Chakotay's head, so at some point he took Tom's suggestion for retreat to higher ground. Though what forced his hand, I'm not sure, and Tom isn't having much luck now.

"Chakotay, we can't go back there. We're lucky we got out alive with the Captain, let alone –"

Chakotay's voice comes from somewhere low in his throat. "Once a mercenary, always a mercenary. Huh, Paris?"

"That's not fair," B'Elanna protests.

"I expect you to side with him, B'Elanna, but you didn't see that place. I can't in good conscience leave anyone there, no matter what their crimes against these… _people_ were. And as long as Captain Janeway is recovering, I am in command. We are going back to that prison."

"Commander," Tuvok says coolly, "please note my objection to this endeavor as it not only a violation of the Prime Directive but has a low probability of success."

"So noted. Anyone else?"

Everyone else. Chakotay is alone in this room, and even Seven of Nine – the woman whose name has become synonymous with atonement – won't take up for him. But what she will do is speak the truth.

"Your judgment is impaired."

"I'm sorry, _what_?" he seethes. "Captain Janeway is nearly dead thanks to those people!"

"Captain Janeway would never allow you to endanger this ship or crew because you are seeking revenge." Seven pushes herself to her feet, but addresses the table. "Excuse us, please."

The rest of the senior staff dismisses without Chakotay's say so, and even I feel a twinge of embarrassment for him. A loss of control reflected inside, and out. He sinks forward over his lap and scrubs a hard hand against the back of his head.

"You're right," he says dimly, "I know you're right. I just… I don't want you to be."

Seven waits a beat before moving around to kneel in front of him.

"I'm afraid…" Chakotay starts and stops as the words strangle out. He tries again. "I'm afraid she won't get better, or if she does, she'll never be the same."

"Me, too."

And it hits me. How truly well-suited they are. While their distaste for human suffering is born of vastly divergent means, it's all that threatens them now. The fact that it's me doing the suffering only amplifies the fear.

"But I did survive," I say to no one in particular.

"Took a few years," Q tosses out, "but you eventually bounced back."

_Years_. Injury had taken me off my bridge a few times, a couple days of ordered convalescences here and there. Two weeks while I made the transition from Borg back to human. But… _years_?

"But… did Chakotay and the others go back to the prison?"

Q shakes her head, inspects her nails. Bored. "A week later they ran into a species native to that system who told them all about The Conscription. Chakotay decided to exercise the better part of valor and plotted the fastest path out of their space."

A dawning realization passes a sigh over my lips. "And right into Fen Domar territory."

Q taps her nose once and snaps.


	4. Chapter 4

**Voyager – 2381**

The Fen Domar are nothing like The Conscription. Their brutality is knotted up in their social acumen and double-speak. They remind me of a combination of Romulans and Betazoids, with smaller ears and darker eyes, respectively, but not since the Devore have I encountered such slimy dispositions.

The Primeran Consult is a lanky, imposing man, almost too tall to be real. Luckily, Crewman Chell has taken this into account and replaced the standard mess hall seating with chairs that accommodate his height, even if they leave my toes scraping the carpet. I won't sit below him.

"I don't mean to be indelicate, Captain…"

Oh, yes he does.

"… but I've some questions as to your whereabouts during the first leg of our negotiations."

I'll bet.

"Is it your species' practice to be dishonest?"

Not as much as it is his. I've already explained this, _ad nauseam_.

"Again, Primeran, my absence was no slight. I was recovering from significant injury."

"And if you don't mind my asking, what exactly were the nature of your significant injuries?"

He forks a bit of salad past his lips, but holds my eyes. I have no doubt he'd bear the same calm expression if he were devouring my beating heart. Chakotay sees it, too, and takes a somewhat more direct approach.

"I'm sure the Captain would be willing to discuss that in private, Primeran."

The Consult's eyes flit around the table to the rest of my staff. Tom and Seven meet his eyes firmly. Tuvok only adds a softly lifted eyebrow. B'Elanna has opted not to dine with what she called, a stinking _pa'tak_. I can't say I disagree with her.

"And not in front of your inferiors," he reasons finally. "I _do_ understand, Captain."

I need to eat this salad, or shoot him and be done with it. They have no intention of letting us cross their space unimpeded. The saving grace is that they haven't progressed past warp three, and we can outrun them if need be.

I won't mention The Conscription because it's all they'll need to impound my crew and seize my vessel. By Chakotay's account of his dealings with him, they'd all but come right out and asked it: were we Conscription insurgents moving under the guise of an alien vessel?

My time with them certainly hadn't recruited me to their cause. If anything, it made me suspicious of everything. The Primeran. The Fen Domar in general. Muffled voices. Quick movements in my periphery. I am a cat in the room full of rocking chairs, and everyone keeps stepping on my tail.

However he does it, Chakotay senses my growing anxiety and gives Crewman Chell the agreed upon signal to skip directly to the main course.

* * *

Time rips forward once more, and the scents of the messhall are replaced by the more pervasive burn of bulk heads and conduits. Harry shouts off readings.

"Three more raiders coming into range off our port bow!"

Battle. I've always excelled at diplomacy, but not quite well as I do in ship-to-ship combat where complex mathematical variables require swift, precise attention to detail.

I know three things about the Fen Domar ships. They're big. They're slow. And they're armed to the teeth. So, my fight has to be made at a distance, or against their underbelly where their weapons fail to reach. At the moment, we're smack in mid-range.

"Evasive pattern lambda-nine! Dodge them, Mr. Paris."

"Yes, ma'am."

A shower of sparks explodes between the command chairs as another volley lands across our hull. I end up on the floor, writhing despite all the adrenaline pounding through my chest. My body won't respond as quickly as I'd like, but thankfully Chakotay makes up the difference.

"Helm, adjust course. Get us out of here before we're dead in the water!"

Yes. That's what I should have done to begin with. _Fuck_ this region of space, and these aliens!

_Voyager_ adjusts beneath me, engines winding up to go to warp as Chakotay pulls me to my feet again.

"Are you okay?"

I brush him off and almost regret it when the muscles tense up my back. "Helm!"

"Engaging, warp four."

_Voyager_ jolts forward, and me with it as the world goes black.

* * *

"What happened?"

Holding out a finger for my silence, Q lifts her face to the empty space above her.

"The timeline is unraveling faster."

Even I can sense that much, see it unspooling around us… wherever we are. I feel a hint of panic march up my neck.

"_Why?_"

Q only smiles. "Because you're beginning to lose your doubt."


	5. Chapter 5

**Voyager – 2383**

A door chime rings. Again, I've been moved without my say so. Standing at the clouded blue expanse beyond my ready room windows, I'm keenly aware that Chakotay is on the other side of that door. I turn to call for him, but feel the twinge of lingering pain rockets to my toes and back. It's enough to make me hesitate, and him to chime a second time.

"Come in," I manage through grit-teeth.

He starts to say something but quickly reads the pain in my expression. "Are you okay?"

"Just a little stiff this morning." I step down, however gingerly, to meet him. "System's report?"

He extends a single PADD but doesn't release it into my grip. "Maybe you should go to sickbay."

"Maybe." But I won't. The painkillers make me muzzy, nauseated and unfocused, and there's little else the Doctor can offer me, much to his dismay. Turns out, bones can't always be mended even in this day and age and my left leg is now a persist reminder of first contact with The Conscription.

Chakotay waits for me to take the seat behind my desk before continuing. "Nine more Fen Domar raiders are circling our position."

"The cloak?"

"Operational," he says and then adds, "_for now_."

It's been a temperamental beast, that's for sure. And while the refracting blue light across our warp field was lovely for a time, this ship is starting to feel like a fish bowl. Of course, it was designed to fit Conscription vessels, not _Voyager_. That Seven stole it –

Reality strikes hard in front as Admiral Janeway's words race up from the aft.

…_three years from now. She'll be injured on an away mission. She'll make it back to _Voyager_ and die in the arms of her husband._

Chakotay. His expression is schooled down to fleeting glances, but the loss is still fresh and the ache as plain as the one in my leg.

_Injured on an away mission_…

In this timeline she's already gone, and now I know why. The cloak, the same technology The Conscription used to abduct me is powering our only defense against the Fen Domar. My memory shows me the module still cased in its housing, torn quite literally from the ship _I_ ordered her to board.

* * *

Time jumps back, less than a year, and I hear more than I see, feel more than I understand.

"We can find another way."

"What way, Chakotay? Our reserves are running low, and we can't drop out of warp long enough to refill them without being attacked. If our core goes down, we're dead. This Conscription vessel is alone and manned with minimal crew."

His pleading argument shifts to outright accusation. "They hurt you and now you want to hurt them!"

"This isn't about revenge, it's about survival. Besides, weren't you at some point going to launch an attack on one of their prisons?"

He was, but he gave all that up. Just like he's asking me to give this up now.

"Don't send my wife to do your dirty work, Kathryn."

"_I'm not_. I'm sending our crewman most qualified in alien technology."

And I did. We did. Seven succeeded. The cloak kept us safe but limping along toward home... without her.

* * *

I think I'm prepared for it, but I'm not. When the ready room fades, I feel the terrible, leeching fingers of grief pulling me toward the floor. Having been faced with it enough times, I've always intellectually known that Seven's death would affect me more than any other member of the crew. But seeing it… really seeing it…

"Wait." There's nothing to sag against in the twinkling null space between scenes, and I desperately need something to hold my weight. "I need a minute."

"You don't have a minute."

As if to prove her point, Q snaps and the starfield draws out again, leaving me facing Chakotay's silhouette against the glass.


	6. Chapter 6

**Voyager – 2385**

* * *

"I relieved Tuvok of duty," I tell him. "So I suppose we can make Harry's promotion official."

"I'll put in the official report." He cocks his head against his shoulder. "Anything else?"

There is. An undue amount it seems. Even viewed in bits and shards, I feel the years and distance between us. I can still smell Seven in his room, even after all these years. It's subtle, but it's there.

"Did you know?"

"About Tuvok?" Finally, he turns to face me. "No. Seems you and I were equally in the dark on this one."

The Doctor. He knew, and it took everything in my power not to revoked his autonomy controls and shuttle him back to existential darkness for the remainder of our trip. But how could I hold him more responsible than Tuvok?

"Chakotay…" The words fall away just past the end of his name, the competing motivations of what I want and what I need, gridlocked inside my chest. I can't be this selfish! This naive to see everything as a betrayal. Chakotay's marriage, Seven's death, Tuvok's illness… but I do.

He steps forward, faint light pulling the gaunt lines of his face out to longer shadows, but his face reads clearly. No matter what has happened, he still cares for me. The cold comfort of his enveloping arms collapses me to the floor. He goes with me, a controlled descent that is punctuated by sobbing gasps against his shoulder.

_I'm so tired_. Every millimeter of my skin hurts, and I don't remember when it didn't. The Conscription, the Fen Domar, two more rounds with the Borg. The interminable passage of time. We knew it would come with losses, but our calculations were wrong.

So. Damned. Wrong.


	7. Chapter 7

**Voyager – 2389**

* * *

Years pass in rapid succession, offering brief but fleeting glances at the horrors of long-term space travel. The odds have never been in our favor, but each year they seem to diminish by more than half. Just as we clear the last few kilometers of Fen Domar space, a pack of Conscription ships punches a hole through _Voyager'_s bow. We lose eight people in one attack, but it's not a number we even have time to mourn or consider before a computer error locks us out of the core for three days. Just when we're back on our feet, a trader ship is kind enough to pass on a few along kilos of deuterium, and a latent alien retro-virus. Three more die, and Harry and B'Elanna are out of commission for two weeks.

Then the Borg take Megan Delany. With Harry's backing, her sister Jenny argues, passionately, with me and the senior staff to attempt a rescue mission. A mission I decided against a week prior.

"I know you miss your sister, Jenny, but—"

"I don't understand why it could be done over and over again for Seven of Nine and not her!"

Neither does Harry, but he won't admit it. Thoughtlessly, my eyes track their way back to Chakotay, trying to read where he's at in all this. His attention stays fixed on the table top, waiting for me to make the call alone.

"I'm sorry, Jenny. My answer is no."

Her rebuttal is swift and full of vitriol regarding me, my staff, but mostly me. I should brig her for insubordination, but I'm not winning any popularity contests these days. I'd probably have a full-scale mutiny on my hands if I did.

Maybe I deserve it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Rea Minor – 2391**

* * *

It's the first M-class planet we've seen in more than a year. Shore leave is extended for a full month following another of repairs. B'Elanna is the only member of the crew who can stand my presence for longer than a cup of coffee, but even that relationship is strained.

Whispers of discontent pass freely through the ship now, and they're calling me Captain Bligh when they know I'm listening. I can't help but wonder how much of a roll Chakotay played in stopping this before. He's certainly making no attempt now.

What I see of him is brief, and public. Very public. In fact, he's outright denied me all chances to be alone with him, citing at first timing, and then finally the truth.

"Honestly, Kathryn. I don't know what to say to you anymore."

Tuvok is a raving lunatic battering around somewhere in the lower decks. In an ill-planned attempt to gain some kind of favor among the junior ranks, I offer his quarters up to Harry. He takes them, then immediately sublets to a four-pack of crewman who are tired of listening to the midnight screams of an illogical Vulcan.

My days begin later, rising almost an hour past Alpha shift's start. It's the price of a sick heart and mind. The Doctor can't afford to relieve me, so he sedates me every night, at 2300. I don't see the bridge until well after lunch and spend most of my time parsing and submitting reports up lines. But even there, my stress is showing and Starfleet arranges a counselor to speak with me, via the Midas array, once a week.

That, too, wins me no points with the crew as it cuts into comm. time with their families.

"Megan Delany," I tell the smooth-haired counselor. "It was the wrong call."

"You think so?"

"Yes."

"But you didn't at the time. Why now?"

I wipe a hand across my mouth. "Because… I should have tried, attempted to locate her. We've had brief communications with liberated Borg vessels over the years. We could have asked one of them at least."

"So, was it the wrong decision because you had the means and didn't, or because you believe your crew hates you for it?"

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"I don't think it is." The comm. panel chirps. "We're out of time. Think about it, Captain. We'll talk next week."

Outside the day is bright and blue. We've been grounded for long enough I've stopped thinking about the stars. B'Elanna hasn't though, and she's the only one mindful of my schedule. Thirty seconds after the comm. closes, the door chime rings.

"Come in."

"Update on the manifold refit."

"That was quick," I say, pulling the PADD from her hands.

"Well, I had a pair of tiny hands to help me," she admits.

Smiling feels awkward, foreign, but I do it. "You'll hear no complaints for me. Engineering can always do with another Torres in the mix." I stand and smooth my uniform into place. "Cup of tea?"

Her eyes shift to the silver set on my table as she starts to make a wincing apology. I wave off the need.

"Go. Enjoy your time off."

She starts toward the door, but stops. "You should go down. It might… do you some good to get off the ship."

She's already gone when I ask, "Yes, but will they lock the door behind me is the question."

**Voyager – 2392**

"Do you think I should step down?"

"What?" Chakotay folds the books closed in his lap. If he's nonplussed by my entrance into his quarters at half-past midnight he's doing a good job of covering it.

"I said, do you think I should step down?"

This time, he arranges himself in the chair to see me clearly. "Have a seat."

I do, but I stay on the edge, unwilling to relax for the duration of this conversation. I'm not testing the waters. I mean it, and I want as honest of an opinion as he can give me anymore.

"Something to drink?" he asks. I shake my head, but when he stands and moves to the replicator I hear him order two cups of tea.

He sets one on the table beside me then returns to his chair. "It's been a while since you've asked my opinion."

"It's been a while since you've wanted to give it."

"I can't decide if I want to now."

My hands fidget in my lap. He nods toward them. "Nervous?"

I wrench them into fists. "It's the drugs." Or really, the lack, thereof. I sent the Doctor away tonight, with my sedative, which was probably my first mistake.

Chakotay sighs, leans back, and cradles his tea beneath his nose. "I can't tell you what you should do, Kathryn. They're not exactly my biggest fans either."

"I don't think I understand."

He tips his head, thoughtful, bemused. "No?"

"They're calling me Captain Blithe."

At that, he chuckles. "Well if they're calling you Blithe, they're calling me Marlowe."

There's a strange familiarity to it all, this conversation, these people. We haven't been them for a long time. For a moment, it's like crisp, Spring air, vital and pure. My hands stop flitting around my cup. My back relaxes. I've missed him.

"What happened to us?"

"Do you really want that answer?"

No. No I don't. I can't stand that answer, and he reads it on my face. "I thought not."

"Can we ever move past this?" I ask, without thinking. But once it's out, I can't call it back. I close my eyes, shake my head, and start for an apology. He stops me.

"Don't. You meant it. And it's exactly why we can't. She was my wife, Kathryn, and you just want me to… what? Tuck my hurt away, sit by your side and pretend she was just another causality of the Delta Quadrant. She's not."

"I know she's not, Chakotay, but even grief ends."

"Oh, you're going to lecture me on handling my grief?" He takes a long sip off the top of his cup, then swallows. "The woman who was too afraid of loving me because she couldn't stand that thought of losing me? Who's still pining after the first fiancé she lost?"

"That's not fair."

Or maybe it is, but it's the cruelty that gets me. The parts of him I've always suspected, but never seen. Things I've told him in the deepest of confidence fired back in my face, spat out with all the incredulous humor of a man who _hates_ more than he loves.

"Step down, Captain. If you think it will help."

All stop. Come about. Take a moment. Breathe. "Okay," I say. Swallow the pressure building in my throat. "_Okay_. If stepping down won't help, and talking won't help, tell me what will. Tell me what I can do to make any of this right."

At this point, if the answer is my death, I'd accept it. It would at least give me something to aim for.

"You know what is most impressive about you, Kathryn? Even when you're being humble, you're still so damned arrogant."

* * *

**New Earth – 2372**

"What are we doing here?" Q demands. She lifts a hand to her face, shielding her eyes from the sun. "I didn't bring us here. Did _you_ bring us here?"

"How would I do that?" I ask, but already know how.

Our younger selves move across the grassy meadow, bantering while we worked.

"_As in, log cabin?"_

"_I built a few of them growing up."_

"I was happy here," I say.

Q pushes the low hanging branches away from her face, angered by their mere presence. "This place smells like lilacs and monkey feces."

"Whenever we would disagree," I continue, "I would force myself to recall it, because as long as we had this, we had a chance at being okay again."

"_Oh_," Q nods, "You've lost your mind."

Cold water.

It startles me upright at her feet. She thins her eyes down to slits and then tosses an empty bucket aside with a hollow clank. I've seen that particular bucket before, felt its contents in much the same fashion, only the redhead holding it at the time has been my sister.

"Effective," Q says thoughtfully. "Get up. You're not done just yet."

I'm exhausted, almost too exhausted to ask, "Where are we now?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Sol-Da-Vin – 2392**

* * *

I never imagined I could despise a place so much, certainly not _Voyager_. But it happens in an odd, death by paper cuts way, and by the time we reach the uncharacteristically friendly planet of Sol-Da-Vin, I'm considering dumping the crew and initiating the self-destruct. I don't hesitate to take shore leave this time, secretly hopeful I won't be welcome when I get back.

Sol-Da-Vin is inhabited by two races, the Sola and the Vinlori. The 'da', the ambassador tells me, is a native term meaning "two-become-one" or some such. I start to mention that, by that math, my crew would be called the Fed-da-Maq, then dismiss the thought when I realize it's close to the Klingon word for lavatory.

The irony however stays with me.

The Sola are an Arcadian people who prefer farming and low-impact technologies, while the Vinlori are an advanced and artistically complex race. Every inch of their city walkways are covered in bold, bright patterns that pay homage to the builders.

I find a book in a local store, denoting markings and their meanings, and spend the day combing the tales of a few hundred aliens. It not unlike walking through a Monet. Up close, the pictures are blurred and meaningless, but at the distance, they come to life.

"Captain?"

The Doctor. I press my lips together, steeling myself before turning to face him.

"It's good to see you off the ship," he says. "Where are you headed?"

I point in the direction I had been walking before he stopped me. "I'm following the story of the Del-Da-Ren family. From what I can tell, they were stoneworkers of some kind. You?"

"I'm meeting Harry and Tom for drinks with a few of the Vinlori pilots. They claim to have some interesting theories about intergalactic travel. Would you like to join us?"

No, I wouldn't. I want to be as far away from warp cores and system analysis as possible. "Thank you, Doctor, but I'm probably going to head back to the ship shortly."

It's a lie he can easily suss out, after the fact anyway. I don't care.

"Well, if you decide to join us…"

We part ways, and a block on I've nearly forgotten our conversation.

While they share a planet, the Sola and the Vinlori rarely inter-marry, making the Del-Da-Ren family an oddity among other city masons. Dellvene, a Sola, fell in love with a Vinlori, Renken, almost four hundred years ago. Together they carved the paths through the city, memorializing their journey to bridge the gaps between their races.

Given the course of the day, I'm not surprised when I run smack into Chakotay. His head jerks up from his own guide book, startled and then stoic.

"I'm… sorry," I say. "I didn't see you."

He makes his own assessment of my path, looks back at his book, frowns and asks, "Del-Da-Ren?"

I nod.

"I'm pretty sure I started at the wrong end."

"Four blocks that way," I say, indicating the correct direction, "if you want to start at the beginning."

For a moment, he looks like he does. Then, with a surprising burst of levity, falls into step beside me.

"Why don't you just catch me up?"

I'm happy to, but cautious not to stray from the topic at hand. In less than a block, we're moving in synch, taking our turns reading through the history of strangers. At some point, he pushes ahead a few paces as I struggle to keep up. He stops, checks back, but I wave him on. "It's okay. I just usually limit my daily exercise to between my desk and the replicator."

"We can stop and sit if you'd like," he offers. There are enough sidewalk cafes, the place feels almost Parisian. "They might have something like coffee."

"Tea," I remind.

"Right."

He goes so far as to hold out my chair before taking a seat across from me. A Vinlori waitress offers us a sampling of their '_most correct_' beverages, which we both accept, even though the universal translator mangled her meaning. She moves away to retrieve them.

"Kathryn, I—"

"Chakotay, I—"

"Go ahead," he says.

"I just wanted to thank you. I needed this."

The waitress returns and settles a collection of cups, a little bigger than demitasses, in front of us. "Enjoy!"

I test the one closest to me and find it sweet and silky against my tongue. "What were you going to say?"

"Only that I wanted to apologize. I had no right to say the things I did."

I don't point out the conversation he's addressing occurred more than eleven months ago, and while I haven't forgotten its content, I've filed the emotional impact of it under 'Delta Quadrant causalities,' right next to my pride.

"I understand. And thank you."

"_Thank you_?" He finishes off one of the cups and moves on to another. "You don't have to say thank you for an overdue apology."

He's right. We're being so pleasant, it's awkward. Thank you and I'm sorry have become the most common phrases between us now, and it's ridiculous.

"All right then, how do you feel about: I probably deserved it, and I've heard worse things in my lifetime?"

"Considering you were asking me how to prevent a mutiny and I responded like Jenny Delany, I have to admit, that's pretty hard to believe."

The mention of Jenny freezes me.

"I gave her three days in warp maintenance," he tells me quietly, "for speaking to you the way she did."

If everyone was paying for their mistakes like that these days, we'd have the cleanest manifolds in the quadrant. I chance a smile, a real one, in his direction. "Thank you. I mean it."

"Do you still love me?" he asks, but I'm not sure that I've heard him correctly. Even though I'm looking at his face, his lips never moved.

_What?_

_Do you still love me? You used to._

Now I know his lips didn't move. I stare blankly into my cup and swirl the ends of what looks like grounds up into a cloud.

_Did either of us bother to scan this before we drank it?_ I wonder.

_No. We were too focused on each other_, he thinks.

"I can hear your thoughts."

"I noticed." He settles the cup back on the saucer with a soft clink. "I guess the damage is done."

I call the waitress back to the table with quick flick of my fingers. "What is this exactly?"

"It is most correct. Pulled from the blossom of one of our most popular fruits, it opens the drinker up to possibilities they've never explored."

_Whatever the hell that means_, I think.

_It means it's a psychotropic_, he answers. _We need to get back to Voyager._

_The Doctor isn't on board. He's_… where had he said he was going?

_You don't remember?_

_Stop it. I was… it's getting harder to focus._

"Come on." Chakotay offers me a hand and then keeps mine in his as we walk back toward the transport site. Somewhere between here and there, he cuts through an alley painted in rhythmic lavenders and pulsating greens.

My back lands against the wall a little harder than I mean for it to. _My head is spinning._

_Mine, too._

_You look fine._

_I've had more experience with this than you have. My people did always use an akoonah._

Right.

"You never answered my question, you know."

"Do we have to talk about this now?"

The answer is yes, I love him, but beyond that, no. No, I don't know what, if anything, we should do about it. No, I haven't forgotten he's still mourning his wife. And no, I won't admit it out loud.

"You don't need to. I heard all that."

Dammit.

"Distance," I wheeze. "We need to put some distance between us."

_I'm not leaving you in the middle of a strange city, high on god knows what. I'm might not be a good one, but I'm still your First Officer. It's my job to protect you._

He tugs me back into the flow of traffic along the sidewalk, but the effects are worsening with every step. Now, I feel drunk _and_ high. I can see the transport site, and a newly disembarking contingent of officers milling around the grounds.

_Just keep moving_, he tells me.

Crewmen Lang and Harrison give us a swift nod. "Commander. Captain."

_When did Lang cut his hair?_ I wonder.

_Three month ago._

_Oh._

The transport isn't the reprieve the want it to be. The swirling lights and momentary burst of light sets bells off in head, and I'm nearly choking when materialize on _Voyager_. Chakotay smoothly guides me past Ayala's dark, inquisitive eyes and into the corridor.

_Let's just go back to our quarters until this wears off or the Doctor gets back_, I suggest.

_Agreed_.

It might just be the worst decision we have ever made.

* * *

There are walks of shame, and then there are after-hour calls to a medic… of shame.

To his credit, The Doctor's eyes do not so much as twitch off the readings when he scans first me, then Chakotay. He folds the tricorder in his first and looks at both of us. "I don't need to tell either of you that consumption of unknown alien food or beverages is covered in the Federation handbook."

"No, Doctor," I assure him, "you don't."

He continues anyway. "Or that engaging in sexual relations with a member of a crew under your direct command requires prior authorization from a CO, which, in this case, would be me."

This one Chakotay fields. "No, Doctor. That either."

"But I assume that since both of you were under the effects of the former, so there is no need to address the latter in my official log?"

"That would be greatly appreciated, Doctor," I say.

"Wonderful. Now sit down, both of you."

I'm already down, and not moving any time soon. The anesthetizing effects the 'most correct' beverage have dissipated, and my body hums with an ache I haven't felt in a while. Chakotay joins me on the couch, nursing his own aches and pains.

"After you called me, I had the ambassador provide me with a sample of this particular drink." He brandishes a PADD out of nowhere. "Psilocybin, tryptamine, phenylethylamine… not to mention a number of native intoxicants."

"Why could we hear each other's thoughts?"

"Because they enhance it with micro-synaptic relays that absorb directly into the blood stream and break down after a few hours." The Doctor drops the PADD against his leg. "Did the two of you at least work out whatever it is was that's been going on between you for the last ten years?"

"You're out of line, Doctor."

"I don't think I am. I've stood by and watched you rip yourselves apart for reasons I'm not entirely sure exist. So, before I'm forced to relieve you both of duty and put Mr. Paris in charge of this ship, _do something about it_."

He leaves without being dismissed, then again, he did just dress us both down like first-year cadets. Dismissal seems a moot point.

I lean back against the couch. "Well, that was dramatic."

"Does he have another setting?" Chakotay folds his hands together and takes a slow breath. "We _should_ probably talk about this."

It wasn't the rousing, passionate encounter I'd imagined so many years ago. In fact, I'm having a hard time remembering most of it, which is probably for the best. Criticism is the last thing we need right now.

Where is Q when you need him? Or Kes? Hell, I'd take Captain Braxton is it meant I could wind back the clock and change today. Yesterday. The last ten years…

We call a tenuous truce, agree to turn our attention to our crew. Tom, B'Elanna, the others. They're first. We make our intentions known, both in public and privately, though how much of it they believe is unclear. It will take time. Effort. And a lot of trust.

* * *

Somewhere, between Sol-Da-Vin and attempts to recover my dignity, Harry pays a rare visit to my ready room. Gone is the baby-face I remember, replaced with the hardened, stoic expression befitting a Chief of Security. He hasn't put on weight so much as bulk, and the widened set of his shoulders collapse a shadow over my desk.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Kim?"

Wordlessly, he offers out two reports. The first is his daily security log. The second, a new take on an old dream. I tap through a list of specifications, construction projections, and warp theory equations with a strange twist.

"What's this?"

"Something I ran across a few weeks ago. I thought you'd might like to take a look."

It's as hopeful as he gets these days.

* * *

Our final year has its bumps and bruises, and even then we're not certain it's our last. Fatal encounters with our hostile alien of the week, as Tom calls them, grow fewer and far between. Four of the Equinox crewmen request to disembark at a Delphridian outpost. I can't spare them, but I can't hold them hostage either. Our Engineering staff diminishes to a half-dozen qualified grade-fours, and one frustrated Klingon.

An ion storm finds purchase in the weaken alloys across the outer hull and obliterates my bridge. Chakotay and I decide we can forgo the repairs, re-allocate the bridge crew to Engineering, give B'Elanna a hand with other projects without too much trouble.

We make our last stand there. Three-three years older but in a lot better shape than we've been in a while.


	10. Chapter 10

**Earth – 2394**

* * *

_Voyager_ is little more than a few bulks heads held together by carpet. B'Elanna is unconscious on the floor, Tom beside her. Chakotay's boot is somewhere farther down deck, mired in a tangle of shredded conduit. The Doctor extends a hand and helps him to his feet, then moves to see to the Paris'.

I try to stand but collapse against the wall. _This fucking leg_.

Chakotay is there in short order to help me to my feet. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the smoked glass of a blown panel. My god am I old. Where the years have stolen almost all the color from my hair, Chakotay is still holding on to his, although the lustrous black is tinged with eternal snow. I feel his muscles tremble we stand, arm in arm, overlooking a modified version of a warp core. A Sol-Da-Vin design, something we've nicknamed The Valkyrie. She's ugly and thick, a clear clash against the _Voyager_'s streamlined majority, and she didn't give us the grand slam back to the Alpha Quadrant so much as a homerun skid.

The warp core belches smoke and burning ozone, frizzing and then dying just as we receive our opening hail.

"_This is the USS Asteria to the Federation vessel. Please state your identity._"

We still scan Federation, for the most part, but our service number was ripped off our hull more than a decade ago. Not to mention that even though we've had regular contact with Command, I cleared this flight, this technology, with no one.

The _Asteria_'s Captain is only little younger than I was when I took command, but was probably a child when I did. Her green eyes flutter then go wide on my face. "USS Asteria, this is the Starship Voyager. Permission to enter Federation space?"

"You're kind of already in it, ma'am."

"Then would you mind pointing us in the direction of Earth. Our navigation is… in pieces."

"We can do better than that."

A dull whine fills Engineering with a flurry of activity and voices. Medics and technicians. We can't get enough of those these days. Chakotay relinquishes me to three blue-suited nurses who immediately begin to administer something for the pain.

The depressing hiss of the hypospray persists for several seconds to follow. _Voyager_'s engine room vanishes, replaced with the oppressive glare of spotlights and a roaring crowd.

"The crew of the USS Voyager!"

Beyond the stage, strobe lights flicker and flash from all directions. Chakotay does his best to offer me a smile, but it barely moves the corners of his mouth. Past him, Tom, B'Elanna and Harry stand in a neat row. The Doctor is the only person on my right. There's a reason for that. Seven is dead. Tuvok, insane. And I will need the sedative in his pocket.

The scene shifts again: more voices, more ceremonies. Handshakes and congratulations. Hyposprays in dark corners away from the prying eyes.

"I'm getting tired of meeting you like this," I joke, but even that sounds sick. The Doctor doesn't chance a smile.

The timeline unravels faster, almost too quickly to perceive. Pieces of conversations, flashes of places and people I only half-recognize.

Indiana. My mother's house. A child who, at best guess, is Miral Paris.

The Presidio at dawn…

Arizona.

* * *

They're all here, except Harry. But not for lack of trying. Starfleet simply cannot justify bringing the _Rhode Island_ back for this. B'Elanna takes me by the elbow, away from the lingering crowd outside his door.

"The doctors stopped treating him as his request. They say it only a matter of time. He wants to see you, but..."

"I know."

"Admiral." She wets her lips. "_Kathryn_, he's… different than you remember."

I don't point out that we haven't been home that long, and while our last conversation was brief, I have no expectation or reservations about seeing him now. I think is some dark way watching Tuvok lose his mind has prepared me, but I know, the minute the door opens, it has not.

The hints of burning sage and lemongrass are secondary to the smell of Seven's perfume. I wonder how it has translated to this space. Aboard _Voyager_ it made sense, but here it stands out like a violent assault on my psyche.

I want to see her again. Desperately. If only to remind myself of the sound of her voice and the weight of her cautious smile. That she existed, however briefly, in both of our lives.

Chakotay is cross-legged in front of a low fire, rocking ever so slightly, front to back. For a moment, I fear I've disturbed him, but when I take a retreating step, he calls to me.

"I know you're there, Kathryn."

The embers of the fire set his face in a dull orange glow. "I knew you'd come."

The year has not been kind to him, or the decades of loss have just finally caught up. His tone is not welcoming, but it's not unwelcoming either. I take a deep breath, settle down beside him, and finally see what has preserved her smell all these years.

The fabric is folded into his lap, but the single sleeve is pulled out from the center is still stained with her blood. When my memory reaches back to her final breaths, she's wearing that color. Probably that exact outfit. But this isn't a grief I can share with him, if only because it isn't one he's willing to share.

"She wanted to see Earth," he tells me through the tears. "She wanted me to show it to her."

"Chakotay…"

"She trusted you."

"I'm sorry."

"No." He shakes his head, his voice barely a whisper, "You're still not."

He's right. Miss her, yes. Mourn her, beyond words. But I'm not sorry I sent her on the mission that killed her. I don't have that luxury. No captain does.

He's always known that.

* * *

"That's it," Q says.

"No. What? Wait." There was more. Much more. While the picture all of this has painted demarks a clear path, so much is missing. How and why the Admiral came to the decision to reverse time. The steps we took, the choices we made…

"Gone." Q offers me a hand, pulls me upright.

"But… _why?_"

"The older you failed to account for one thing. She couldn't show you the future she was unmaking, and she didn't know failing that, she had inevitably cursed you with the same, suffering madness, thereby creating the future she sought to destroy in the first place. The path to paradise, as it were, begins in hell. Q suspected you'd get the reference."

I do.

"You've seen your hell, Kathryn Janeway. Now…" She leans in, curling her nose ever so slightly when she says, "…stay away from it."


	11. Chapter 11

**Venice – 2378**

* * *

"Kathryn?"

He finds me at the window again, but I'm not sure how long I've been there, or even how long I was gone. If I ever was. He reaches for my face and brushes my lips with his thumb when his fingers move into the hair at the base of my neck. The sensation it evokes is a boneless, radiating bliss. Our proximity has always had this effect, to one degree or another, like two stars held in elliptical orbit. Our trajectory depends on a focal point, a connection.

My mouth touches his with tentative freedom. This is still so new it takes a moment to adjust to the idea that we are not compromising a damn thing, except, _maybe_, the pliability of flesh against the stone underfoot. I somehow doubt we'll make it back to the bed.

Chakotay withdraws just enough to see my face, his voice breathless and warm. "Not that I mind, but what was that for?"

A stricter expression tightens the corners of my mouth as an eyebrow arches up my forehead. "Do I need a reason?"

"Certainly not, Admiral." He punctuates it with a soft, chuckling kiss against the pulse point of my wrist, and then entwines his fingers with mine.

Still, I tell him. He listens quietly; the Conscription, the Fen Domar. Seven. The images are difficult to reconstruct past fleeting bursts of attached emotion, what I felt in them and how I feel about them now, but I manage to encapsulate them into something we can both understand, and there is only one question left.

"Do you think it's possible," I ask, studying our conjoined hands, "the other Admiral came back to change _this_, as well?"

Chakotay brushes his lips against my knuckles, his eyes fixed to a distant point as he considers it. "It's a possibility we certainly can't discount. But if I'm being honest, it's a fate I'm glad you - _she_ \- spared me."

I hold his eyes, hunting for the explanation I desperately need. For a minute, he looks as if he intends to leave it at that. "The truth is, I can't imagine as world where I am not by your side in some capacity. But I suppose, the multi-verse being what it is, even that timeline exists somewhere. If you hadn't taken command of _Voyager_, if Tuvok hadn't been able to infiltrate my ship. I could have died with the others on Tevlik."

I shudder at the thought.

"So," he continues, "as far as changing fates are concerned, I'd say we got a pretty good deal."

Finally, I let my hands drift to the soft recesses at the base of his spine, urging as much as insisting, as our kiss resumes to the reeling melody of a distant violin.

What happens between us there - in the open archway of the window, against the wall, and eventually on the floor - is wanton, rushed, but familiar enough for neither of us to care. We need this. We've _earned_ this. And there will be plenty of time to explore and catalog the intricate responses to heat and touch... in the future.


End file.
